BRECKSVILLE, Ohio – The eyes of city officials were aglow this holiday season as they envisioned new tax dollars – from a new outpatient health center – flowing into town, in the biggest community news story of 2013.

MetroHealth in October announced the new center, which will include a freestanding emergency room, wellness center and outpatient surgery center.

Dr. Akram Boutros, MetroHealth's CEO, said planning for the Brecksville center started about two years ago. It will be similar to a newly-opened complex in Middleburg Heights.

MetroHealth in 2012 announced plans for four new outpatient health centers in the suburbs.

MetroHealth will buy about 21 acres, at a cost of $3.5 million, for the Brecksville center site. The city of Brecksville will pay the health system $2.25 million as an incentive to build.

The property is primarily in Brecksville but access to the site will mean crossing about 200 linear feet of land in Broadview Heights.

So, in October, Brecksville and Broadview Heights signed a tax-sharing agreement, under which Brecksville would receive 80 percent of income taxes collected from medical-center workers and Broadview Heights would receive 20 percent for 30 years.

The MetroHealth proposal was not the only significant news in Brecksville in 2013. Other big stories included:

The tax credit would drop from 100 percent to 87.5 percent. It would mean that residents who work outside the city, earning $60,000 a year, would pay Brecksville $150, plus whatever they have been paying their workplace cities. Residents pay nothing now.

Hruby said the tax credit reduction would generate $900,000; the city would use that money to build a water park and fieldhouse on the city-owned Blossom Hill property.

Councilwoman Nora Murphy said she did not oppose the water park and fieldhouse but did not want to raise taxes. She said some families are still suffering the effects of the recent recession.

Councilman Rex Mack said it is a good time to borrow money because interest rates are low.

The city will decide on the tax issue in 2014.

3. A new police station: Hruby announced in August that it will cost between $4 million and $7 million to build a new police station on the west side of Brecksville Road, across from City Hall.

Hruby said the city would use existing funds only for the design and site-preparation work. For construction, the city would borrow money and use the general fund to repay the debt over a period of years.

The plan is to break ground in fall 2014 or the start of 2015. In December, the city hired a Bedford landscaping firm, The Barker Group, to tear down a vacant house on the 4-acre site.

Hruby said Brecksville needs a new police station because the city has outgrown the existing one, which is part of City Hall. The Police Department had about 12 officers when the existing station was built, he said. Now the department employs 31 police officers, six dispatchers and eight jailers.

The new station will include a new jail because the existing jail is antiquated, Hruby said. He said prisoners are not in jeopardy but the jail does not meet modern requirements, including proper lighting in cells, a certain level of privacy and an exercise area.

Also, the mayor's court and clerk-of-court office, now in City Hall, will move to the new station.

The city has not decided whether the station will house a dispatch center that other communities would share. However, the station site would have room for expansion, Hruby said.

4. A controversial letter: In October, Mark Dosen, a member of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Board of Education, sent a letter to the private email addresses of some school district workers. The letter encouraged them to re-elect two of his incumbent colleagues.

Some questioned the appropriateness of Dosen's attempts to sway the votes of his subordinates.

Dosen said the letter was intended for residents, not district workers. He said he inadvertently included the emails of teachers and other employees in a mass mailing to voters.

Dosen received the email addresses after submitting a public-records request to the school district and to the office of Broadview Heights Mayor Sam Alai.

The schools’ list of email addresses is primarily used to contact parents in emergencies or keep teachers and other stakeholders informed of district happenings, according to district officials.

"People are obviously concerned that their personal emails are being used for political purposes,” Superintendent Scot Prebles said at the time.

Alai was not happy about what happened. In an Oct. 29 email to residents, he said Broadview Heights has used residents’ email addresses to deliver his weekly messages, public-service and community-event announcements and road-closure updates. He said the city would also send emails to residents during emergencies.

“It is with deep regret that I must inform you that the email address you submitted to receive the mayor’s message has been made public and can now be used by Mr. Dosen for any purposes he likes,” Alai said to residents.

Alai said he tried not to comply with Dosen’s request but state public-records law required the release of the email addresses. He said the city recently updated its website and will no longer maintain the address list.

“I am truly dismayed that after 10 years of maintaining the integrity of your email addresses that someone would break that public trust for any reason,” Alai said in the email.

5. Two new school board members: Dosen’s emails didn’t stop Debbie Bernaur, a retired teacher, from unseating David Tryon, president of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Board of Election, in the November election.

In fact, Bernaur received more votes than any of the four candidates vying for two board seats. Voters also re-elected incumbent board member Mark Jantzen.

Bernaur is past president of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Education Association, the teachers’ union. In 2012, she took part in heated labor negotiations that almost led to a strike, although she was not union president at the time.

6. A lack of cemetery space: The city took steps to increase the number of gravesites in city-owned cemeteries.

The issue first came up in September. Hruby said Brecksville Cemetery had only 44 vacancies out of about 5,200 gravesites.

The city talked about building a new cemetery on the city-owned Blossom Hill property. That possibility is still on the table.

Meanwhile, the city found room for another 200-400 graves in municipally owned Riverview Cemetery, after CTL Engineering Inc. in Columbus used ground-penetrating radar to make sure the potential gravesites didn’t already contain human remains.

Also, more than 100 new graves are planned for a triangular section of Brecksville Cemetery on Highland Road.

Hruby said the additional burial space in Riverview and Brecksville cemeteries should provide enough new grave sites for about seven years.

7. School levy: In November, voters decisively approved Issue 77, which renewed and made permanent a 6.3-mill levy for the Brecksville-Broadview Heights City School District.

District officials said they wanted to end confusion and inconvenience for voters by renewing and permanently establishing the levy, first approved in 2004.

The levy – which costs the owner of a $100,000 home about $193 a year, according to district Treasurer Richard Berdine – will not increase taxes.

Residents overwhelmingly rejected a charter amendment that would have allowed City Council to bypass voters and rezone land in office, office-laboratory and manufacturing-distribution districts.

Under the proposed amendment, council would have had power to rezone, for example, an office district into a manufacturing-distribution district or an office-laboratory district into an office district.

However, council would not have had authority to rezone residential land, under the failed charter amendment.

Voters approved charter amendments that will:

• allow council, during a public meeting, to read only the title of proposed legislation instead of the entire ordinance.

• require that council ratify appointments and firings of all assistants to the city's finance director.

• allow both the mayor and council to provide input on personnel needed in the city's Police, Fire and Building departments.

• let the mayor, who now serves as director of public safety, to appoint a separate public safety director, if he or she chooses.

• require that both the mayor and council approve firings in the Public Service Department. The charter had given that authority only to council.

• place the city's law director under the direction of both the mayor and council. Before, only council was allowed to assign duties to the law director, although in practice, the mayor works with the law director more often.

• require the city to start the charter-review process earlier so the commission can prepare proposed amendments in time for early voting by mail. Under the charter, the city must appoint a commission every 10 years.

9. A modern Marc’s: In February, a new Marc’s store opened in Brecksville Town Center at the corner of Royalton and Brecksville roads. Marc’s founder Marc Glassman attended the grand opening.

The 46,000-square-foot store includes unique features such as a jewelry counter, a closeout section with electronics and a Corbos Bakery.

10. A resurrected baseball field: The city partnered with the school district to rehabilitate the Highland Drive Elementary School baseball field, which has not been used for about 15 years.

In July, council approved legislation supporting the lease agreement, which authorizes the city to maintain and operate the field and use it for softball games. Students would play on the field during the school year.

At first, the city considered building new fields at the Blossom Hill property. However, wetlands concerns shelved those plans, at least for now.

Hruby said the city paid the entire cost of the renovation, estimated at $28,500. Most of the work has been completed, he said.

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